Michael Mahle knew what he wanted; a communications job in the wine world. So he made this resume, with a wineglass theme, and pitched hard to get what he wanted – and work with his metaphor.
What seems to be a simple conceit (put a big wine glass image) on the resume turns into far more, and he’s packed all the needed resume detail on here, and done it with a non-standard resume flow. Let’s take a look.
What can we learn:
- First, as noted, this is a full resume, and he got that on top of working with his theme. That’s great – and shows his skills.
- He has a concise summary of himself that works with the conciseness of the resume – normally I prefer a bit longer, but it works here.
- The use of the wine glass image to “contain” his skills is a great way to play them up and use his metaphor – as well as draw the eye to what he has to offer. That’s a great use of space and imagery – and the big “Experience” calls attention as well.
- He breaks up Experience and Skills. I’m not sure that always works, but in this case he’s trying to make some distinctions, and as he has a short self-description it provides detail.
- Normally I don’t approve of education being listed too early, but as the “top” of the resume is skills and experience this actually works.
- On that subject, he divides the resume well, with the “stem” of the wineglass being where he discusses his career. Another good use of the metaphor.
- Those gold dividing lines are a good call, to ensure the different sections are separated and create some flow for the reader.
- I like the overall choice of color scheme – rich, friendly, and different. Notice he doesn’t resort to plain black text at once.
- The resume shows skilled design – and is a testimony to his abilities.
- This is the rare resume that is both a kind of “stunt” resume and a traditional resume all in one.
Now there are a few issues I have.
- Sadly, I doubt this is scannable – the use of the curving effects on the glass for instance may mess with OCR. But it could be tweaked.
- He may have wanted a hobby section to not mix hobbies with skills.
- The “second half” of the wine glass, with his career is clever, but I just don’t get a sense of career flow from it. I probably would have put the dates first, or above the locations, in a darker, smaller font.
- I don’t know if he needs to mention the people he knows unless these are references – and then me may want to call them such. Though I imagine knowing Tim Zagat is pretty important.
- Not sure if the various social media icons are needed unless the resume is web-active (which the original was), though it does show off what he knows.
I really like how this resume takes one element iconic to his search (the glass) and works it into his resume design and a semi-traditional one at that. It really gets your attention, speaks to his focus (wine), and shows skill. If you’re trying a highly industry-specific pitch, something like this might work for you.
Steve’s Summary: This resume gets my attention twice – first for the crafting, then the detail. It tells me he is a communications person.
[“50 Shades of Resume” is an analysis of various interesting resumes to celebrate the launch of the second edition of my book “Fan To Pro” and to give our readers inspiration for their own unique creations.]
– Steven Savage